Remarks by the Vice President at the Hudson Institute's James H. Doolittle Award Luncheon Honoring Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel
Washington, D.C.

12:45 P.M. EDT

MR. LONDON: Hudson Institute has broken with tradition. For the
first time, we honor a sitting Cabinet member, Secretary Don Rumsfeld.
It is an honor for me to be in his presence, truly a great American.
The Secretary -- (Applause.)

The Secretary is a long-time friend of Hudson Institute, who 25
years ago regularly consulted with Hudson's founder, the late Herman
Kahn. Before we present the award, we have the pleasure of hearing
from the 1998 Doolittle Award winner, Vice President Dick Cheney. It
is altogether appropriate that the Vice President pay tribute to the
Secretary. In 1969, Mr. Rumsfeld, then head of the Office of Economic
Opportunity in the White House, spotted a talented, brilliant, young
congressional staffer and hired him as his special assistant. That
special assistant was Dick Cheney. Their lives have been intertwined
ever since.

In the Ford White House, Mr. Cheney served as deputy chief of staff
under Mr. Rumsfeld. When Mr. Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense, he
became the youngest White House Chief of Staff at the age of 34. The
Vice President went on to serve with great distinction in the House of
Representatives, and as Secretary of Defense from 1989 to 1993, and led
U.S. forces during the first Persian Gulf War. He became Vice
President of the United States in January, 2001. And since then, his
creative thinking and his unflappable persona have been of inestimable
value to our nation and to the free world.

Ladies and gentlemen, I had the chance to interview and to
introduce Vice President Cheney when he received this award several
years ago. It is always an honor to be able to introduce him. It is
my distinct pleasure to introduce the Vice President of the United
States, Richard Cheney. (Applause.)

It's a special privilege to be asked to come back today and to join
all of you in the Hudson Institute in awarding the General Doolittle
Award to an old friend of mine, the Secretary of Defense, Mr.
Rumsfeld. I was invited today, I thought, for a couple of reasons.
Partly because I'm a big fan of General Doolittle's. I think he's
clearly one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century, been one of
my heroes; perhaps because I was the award winner a few years ago; but
I suppose most importantly because I know a little something about
Secretary Rumsfeld.

And Herb mentioned that he'd plucked me from the Congress in 1969,
made me a special assistant, and of course, the rest is history. But
it didn't go quite that smoothly. (Laughter.) The true story of that
first meeting is that I flunked my first interview, that I'd arrived in
Washington as a young congressional Fellow, going to spend a year on
the Hill working on a PhD dissertation, and then I was to go back to
the University of Wisconsin and teach.

But while I was here, I was supposed to negotiate an employment
arrangement with any congressman of my choice. Don had spoken to the
group of Fellows that I was a part of, and I was impressed, so I made
an appointment to go see him, and went by his office a couple of days
later for an appointment, an interview in the hopes that I could sign
on in his office as part of his staff. I was free help to the office
-- didn't cost him a thing.

And the interview lasted about 15 minutes and I found myself back
out in the hallway, and it was clear that we hadn't hit it off.
(Laughter.) He thought I was some kind of airhead academic, and I
thought he was rather an arrogant young member of Congress. Probably
we were both right. (Laughter.) But I went to work for another
congressman, a good friend of ours, Bill Steiger.

And a couple of months later, Don got nominated by President Nixon
to be director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. He joined the
administration. And so I sat down one night, unsolicited and wrote a
12-page memo, suggesting to him how he should handle himself in his
confirmation hearings, and giving him some sterling advice on what he
ought to do with the department once he got confirmed. I gave the memo
to my boss, Bill Steiger, who passed it on to the Congressman.

And I didn't hear anything more about it for several weeks. And
then finally the confirmations came, and Don got confirmed and sworn
in. I got a phone call asking me to come down to OEO to join a
transition team, which I did the next day, and walked into the big
conference room, about 50 or 60 people gathered around. And Don came
in, spoke to the group, left. And shortly after he'd left, his
secretary came in and said, is there somebody here named Mr. Cheney? I
held up my hand. And she said, come with me. Took me back into his
office there at OEO, behind the conference room. He was in there all
by himself, second day on the job. And he said, "You, you're
Congressional Relations. Now get out of here." (Laughter.)

Now mind you -- (laughter) -- he didn't say, "Sit down --
(laughter) -- have a cup of coffee. Would you like to come to work for
me?" He said, "You, you're Congressional Relations. Now get out of
here." And that's how I was hired, literally. And I went out and
asked where Congressional Relations was, and was told, and went down
the hallway and went to work.

But that was, of course, just before he developed his suave,
smooth, warm, fuzzy -- (laughter) -- personality that we've all grown
to love over the years. (Laughter.) Henry Kissinger over here is
laughing because he knows that that's an exactly true story.
(Laughter.) He's seen all those traits in our friend.

But it was a tremendously important event for me. And the fact of
the matter is, I like to joke about it. And Don Rumsfeld was probably
the toughest boss I ever had. I worked for him two different periods
of time, a total of about five years, and it had a huge impact on my
life, literally changed my whole career. And much of what I've been
able to do since in the years since 1968 when I was first kicked out of
his office when I flunked that first interview, but it's directly due
to the fact that he was willing to take a chance on me and give me some
tremendous opportunities over the years. And I will always be grateful
for his willingness to take a chance on an unknown quantity.

Of course, we're here today to recognize and honor his service.
And certainly his record as a congressman, Navy pilot, ambassador to
NATO, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense twice, a
distinguished career in business is in keeping with those values that
are epitomized by the General Doolittle Award.

General Doolittle was himself a true American original, a soldier,
scientist, strategist, an apostle of air power, an architect of
America's airborne might; won the Medal of Honor, of course, for that
remarkable raid on Tokyo in April of 1942; commanded the 12th and later
the 8th Air Forces in North Africa and Europe during the war. And the
fact that the Hudson Institute has picked him to honor men of
Doolittle's stamp I think says a great deal for the fact that Don
Rumsfeld has been selected for this award today.

The events of September 11th, of 9/11 two years ago, obviously,
have had a significant impact upon the course of American history --
really been a watershed event. And it has had enormous consequences
based upon the key decision the President made, the leadership he's
provided, and the call that has been placed upon the United States
military and the Department of Defense in Afghanistan and Iraq and in
the global war on terror.

And lest any of us think that the struggle is over with, all we
have to do is contemplate last night's tragic events in Riyadh, where
some 91 people were killed, at least seven of those, Americans. We
don't have the full accounting yet.

Clearly, we are locked in the kind of the struggle that will
continue for a good many years, that calls upon the very best in the
United States military. And I can't think of anybody better qualified
to lead the Department of Defense, to respond to and work for the
President of the United States, with our Commander-in-Chief, who set
some very high standards in terms of what he wants during this period
of time, than the man we honor today, the Secretary of Defense. I
don't think there's anyone more deserving of this award than my old
boss and current colleague, the Honorable Don Rumsfeld. Don, would you
join us? (Applause.)

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you
very much. (Applause.) Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.

Mr. Vice President, thank you. It wasn't like that. (Laughter.)

Rabbi Shemtov, Herb London, Chairman Stern -- my friends Henry
Kissinger and Jim Schlessinger, my guest, Brent, all are former
recipients of this award -- we thank you for your long and able and
continuing service to this country. And, ladies and gentlemen, think
how fortunate we are to have Dick Cheney serving as Vice President --
(laughter) -- a superb executive, a wise counselor. The Vice President
is a combination of both thinker and doer. His quiet contributions
will be well and properly recorded not in the front pages of
newspapers, but in the history books that are yet to be written. I am
sure glad I discovered him. (Laughter.)

And thank you, Herb, to you and your associates for how you're
carrying on the legacy of Herman Kahn and the work of this important
institute. I did value my relationship with Herman, a remarkable man
with brilliant ideas on so many subjects -- war, peace, trade, energy,
transportation, and of course, the future.

As I recall at one of his -- oh, I guess it was a conference we
attended. We attended so many conferences together over the -- in the
'60s and the '70s. I think it was an American Assembly or a Shimoda
Conference in Japan -- how he regaled us with the possibility of a
pontevecchio going from the U.N. building across the river. And there
wasn't any subject that he wouldn't tackle with enthusiasm, with
relish, and a lively engaging mind, and that delightful good humor.

Now, the truth be told, I've been around so long that I also knew
Jimmy Doolittle. (Laughter.) I had several opportunities to visit
with him. My recollection is, it was out at Bohemian Grove, where he
would attend periodically, and we would pass and visit. He was always
so interested. So I do thank you for this fine award which bears his
distinguished name.

Like the Hudson Institute, General Doolittle helped to change the
world. Indeed, many of the principles that we recognize as so
important in the 21st century -- speed, jointness, flexibility,
transformation, precision -- were, in a sense, pioneered by Jimmy
Doolittle.

Take speed: After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Doolittle
shocked the world by retaliating against Tokyo some 4,000 miles from
Hawaii in just four months. In 2001, the United States struck a
terrorist regime in Afghanistan nearly 7,000 miles from the World Trade
Centers less than a month after September 11th.

Take jointness: In a sense, the Doolittle raid was an early
example of combined joint warfighting. Think about it, he led a team
of Army pilots on that historic bombing mission, taking off from the
deck of a Navy ship, and landing in an allied nation. Today, that same
principle of combined joint operations guided General Tom Franks as a
joint force of Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, National
Guard, and reservists combined with British, Australian, Polish forces
in unprecedented ways to liberate Baghdad in less than a month.

In this century, the challenges we face are certainly different
from his day. We're likely to face fewer large armies, navies, and air
forces, and instead, more adversaries who hide in lawless, ungoverned
areas and attack without warning and attack in, for the most part,
unconventional ways. So our challenge is not conventional; it's
unconventional. We're living in a new and a dangerous world, as the
Vice President suggested.

We can live in this world -- let there be no doubt about that. And
we can live as free people. Herman Kahn was many things -- scientist,
mathematician, economist, historian, futurist. But above all, he was
an optimist. And I share his confidence in the future of our country.
So members of the institute, I thank you for this fine award.

Mr. Vice President, I thank you for your kind words, your
friendship, your good humor, and most of all, I thank you for your
truly superb service and leadership to our country. We are fortunate
that you are where you are, doing what you're doing, and with our truly
outstanding President. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Now, I'm told that we can talk the Vice President into answering
some questions. Is that right?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I was told it was to be a joint appearance.
(Laughter.) I hope you got authorization for this. I didn't.
(Laughter.)

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Where's Herb? Isn't this right? Are there
microphones? We don't even need them in this room. Who has a
question? I can't see because of the lights, but go ahead, sing out.

Q Good afternoon. I have a question for the Secretary of
Defense. Can you please elaborate, because there's some confusion,
about the return of General Garner to Washington and the arrival of
Ambassador Bremer to Baghdad?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Sure, I would be happy to. I'm trying to
think when it was, I think it was late last year, the President and the
Vice President, Secretary Powell and I talked. And we asked General
Garner to undertake a task of beginning to prepare the ground for a
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and the kinds of reconstruction and
humanitarian activities that might be necessary in the event that there
had to be a conflict -- which we hoped would not be the case.

Jay Garner, God bless him, agreed to do that, and left his business
responsibilities, came into the Pentagon, began that work, did a superb
job. And at the time he did it, we talked and agreed that he would not
be able to stay at it for an extended period, and that he recognized
that it made sense to have a senior civilian serve as a presidential
envoy on that post at some point in the future. He then -- when the
conflict ended -- went to Kuwait, in fact, I think before it was even
over, and began the process of getting ready to move into Iraq when the
environment was sufficiently permissive.

He has done a superb job. There is just no question about it. And
this nonsense in the newspapers is unfortunate. It's unfair to him.
It's unfair to the process. It is terribly confusing for the people in
Iraq. This is an outstanding American who is doing a spectacular job
for this country. And I know that Ambassador Bremer, who the President
selected for that civilian post, is a first-rate individual. I've
known him. The Vice President's known him. I know he used to work
with Henry Kissinger years ago. And he will do a terrific job.

Jay Garner has agreed to stay on during a transition period and
assist in that process. And for that, we're deeply grateful. So
they're both first-rate individuals. The articles suggesting that Jay
is being replaced by somebody for some reason is just plain not true.
This was part of the concept when we first began this process and I'm
personally deeply grateful to Jay and Jerry Bremer for undertaking this
service to the country.

Now, for the Vice President, who's ready? There you go.

Q Why did you fail the first interview? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: That's for me.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, you better ask Rumsfeld that.
(Laughter.) Let me tell you what he told me. (Laughter.) As I
recall what he was looking for was somebody with some practical
experience who could help out in a congressional office. He had a
requirement for a speechwriter. Now, if you know Don Rumsfeld,
throughout his career he's always had a requirement for a
speechwriter. (Laughter.) Because he has great difficulty keeping
speechwriters.

But I really -- I went into the interview -- (laughter) -- I went
into the interview very much sort of focused on an academic career. I
was there to do a dissertation, research on the Congress, et cetera.
And he heard about five minutes of this, and it was pretty clear that
didn't really fit with his plans for the job he wanted to fill. So I
probably would have rejected me, too. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Now, the truth is -- (laughter) -- I had big
district. I had something like a million people -- it was before one
man, one vote, and it was -- I think -- the largest district in
America. And I had dropped out of law school, and I figured it would
be nice to have a lawyer on my staff. So I hired a lawyer. Now,
that's the truth, notwithstanding what he said.

Questions?

Q I am a German emergency doctor, who lived in North Korea
for one and a half years. The people in North Korea are starving and
dying. They are suffering under a dictatorship maybe even worse than
Iraq. Is there any opportunity for the U.S. government to give
assistance to those people?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: The U.S. government has been giving assistance
to those people. And you're quite right, the circumstance of the
people in North Korea is a tragedy. The food is in short supply. Many
people in North Korea have not received the kinds of nourishment that
they need. And, indeed, the North Korean military, if I'm not
mistaken, recently lowered the height at which they would accept people
in the military because so many individuals have not grown because of
lack of food early in their period.

But the United States has been one of the large donors of food in
North Korea. I know that the Peoples Republic of China is giving
something like a half a billion dollars a year to North Korea. I know
that hard currency goes from Japan into North Korea. The problem isn't
that they're not getting enough money from the outside world. If you
look at that peninsula, and you look at it at night, from a satellite,
the southern portion of the peninsula is just filled with lights and
energy and activity -- economic activity. And from the demilitarized
zone north, there's practically not a light to be seen at night. Some
in Pyongyang, but it's a black, bleak picture. Why is that? They're
roughly the same size. The South has a GDP -- I'm going to guess it's
probably 25, 35 times what it is in the North. Why? It's because of
the systems. It's because of the viciousness of that dictatorship.
And it is a heartbreaking thing to think of the circumstance of the
people in that country. But the solution for it, it seems to me, is to
recognize that market systems are the ones that are producing the most
for their people. And dictatorships and despotism don't.

Question, right here?

Q The great Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis has said that one
of the problems in terms of the Mideast, and the Arab Islamic world is
that the media are virtually closed there. They get nothing but
government-controlled media. And in the bookstores you find The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf. Do you have a strategy
in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East for opening up sources of
information so they get wider information base to deal with and more
information about the West, as well?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've talked to Bernard Lewis about that
very subject. He is eloquent on it. I agree with him. I think one of
our major problems in the past has been a lack of, sort of, open,
honest flow of information for the people in that part of the world. I
think there is progress. That is to say, I think their technology, in
part, is making available now to, at least elites throughout that part
of the region, satellite dishes and various and sundry kinds of access
to various pieces of media and more information than was true in the
past.

But we need to continue to work it very aggressively. We need a
very active, sort of, public information campaign on what we're doing,
on what our goals and objectives and purposes are there. And we're
trying to do some of that in Iraq now, and hopefully, we'll be able to
expand beyond that in the future and begin to deal with the publics in
that part of the world based upon facts and honest, open flow of
information.

Q Mr. Secretary and Mr. Vice President, first of all,
congratulations on your leadership. John Block, from the Reagan days.
But let me ask, the tragedy of this attack that just occurred last
night or in recent hours, as tragic as it is, it's going to have
serious ramifications. Maybe good, maybe bad. I'd like for you to
talk about the fall-out from this internationally because a lot of
people were killed from other countries, too. How do you measure this
thing?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, Jack, I look at it -- several things
that come immediately to mind. Clearly, the target in this particular
case wasn't just Americans. It was Westerners, if you will, I think
based upon the people who were victims of the attack. We've seen this
before. I think clearly the Americans were the prime target, if you
will. New York and Washington on 9/11 confirmed that. But we've seen
these terror attacks in East Africa. We've seen them in Bali. So I
think the message to be taken from all of this is that this is a
worldwide problem, a global problem that's aimed primarily at the
West. But these al Qaeda terrorists have killed a large number of
Muslims, as well, too.

If you look at the people who were killed in the East Africa and
the innocent life that was taken there, some 12 Americans, I believe,
but a couple of hundred local citizens. So this is a conflict we've
got to deal with on a worldwide basis. It should reinforce the
willingness of other governments to cooperate with the United States in
the intelligence area, in the area of law enforcement, in terms of
going after the financial networks and organizations that provide
support for organizations like al Qaeda. We should -- lead us to
redouble our efforts, if you will, to organize on an international
basis to take down the force.

The other point that needs to be made here, as well, too, is to
recognize the fact that the only way to deal with this threat
ultimately is to destroy it. There's no treaty that solves this
problem. (Applause.) There's no peace agreement, no policy of
containment, or deterrence that works to deal with this threat. We
have to go find the terrorists. And we'll do everything we can here at
home and around the world to create hard targets so we're difficult to
get at. But in the final analysis, the only sure way to security and
stability and the protection of our people and those of our friends and
allies is to go eliminate the terrorists before they can launch any
more attacks. And this President is absolutely bound and determined to
do that. (Applause.)